Read The Isadora Interviews for Free Online

stopped moving, heard herself rambling again but couldn’t stop it.
    “Have you learned anything about herbs?” Isadora asked, peering into Camille’s globe-like hazel eyes.
    “Is there a reason you’re taking notes?”
    The question burst out of Camille’s mouth before she could stop it. She wrung her hands together in her lap, knuckles white.
    “Am I doing something wrong?”
    Isadora just smiled.
    “Who said those notes are about you?”
    Camille just stared at her, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
    “Well, I—I just assumed . . . you asked . . . what was the original question?” she asked in a squeak. She couldn’t even think straight. That blasted feather never stopped.
    “Herbs,” Isadora reminded her. “I wondered if you had ever worked with herbs.”
    “A little bit. I know some herbs because of Leda and Miss Kathy.”
    Isadora looked up from the diary, her thin eyebrows lifting.
    “Have you ever thought of being an apothecary? They work with herbs every now and then.”
    “Well,” Camille hedged. “I thought about it but I just . . . I just . . . it could be a pretty quiet job, don’t you think?”
    “Could be,” Isadora reasoned. “How about a potionmaker, like your friend Fitz?”
    “Fitz isn’t my friend,” Camille gently corrected Isadora. “Besides, potionmakers don’t work with people. That’s a job for witches like Leda, who are grumpy around other witches and want to work on their own.”
    Isadora’s lip turned up a little at the corner, but she hid it by coughing into her fist.
    “And you don’t want to work alone.”
    “No!”
    The answer came out far louder and more vehemently than she meant it to. Camille didn’t realize that she’d shot forward in her seat until it was too late and sat back with a sheepish look.
    “I’d just die if I were locked in a room by myself,” she finished in a calmer tone.
    The feather had stopped completely, and now Isadora just sat staring at her. Under such an intense gaze, Camille waited to feel Isadora rooting through her brain, looking for information as if she’d lost something there.
    “Any other education?” Isadora finally asked. “Besides homeschooling, I mean.”
    Camille faltered.
    “Well, ah, Bettina has taught me reading, spelling, writing. A little bit of divination . . .” Camille trailed off.
    Bettina doesn’t have the patience to teach me, she almost said but stopped herself. The truth was that Bettina often became too exasperated to work with Camille, and left her to study by herself. In the end, distracted by the quiet, Camille would mostly daydream about exploring Chatham castle, sewing a new dress that wasn’t linen or gray, or what it would be like to wear lacy gloves to tea.
    “Is that all?”
    “N-no. I’ve learned more,” Camille said, eager to fill the silence but fearful that she’d somehow disappoint Isadora’s expectations. Isadora gave an encouraging nod, acting as if she had all the time in the world.
    Maybe she doesn’t mind if I talk, Camille thought, the tension in her shoulders easing a little. Bettina never wants me to talk.
    “Bettina is trying to teach me algebra,” she admitted with a sheepish grin. “I’m terrible at it. Then she gets frustrated and tells me to figure it out and locks herself in her room for the rest of the day.”
    Isadora didn’t seem surprised.
    “What do you do then?”
    “I try and figure out the algebra,” she said. “Really, I do! One day I worked on it for a full thirty minutes without day dreaming once. But I don’t really understand math. Sometimes Leda helps me, but she’s really busy studying too.”
    Isadora hummed something.
    “Can you do transformations?”
    “Not really, but I’d like to!” Camille leaned forward in her seat, a flush of excitement on her face. “Leda once transformed a white flower into a pink one. She doesn’t really know how she did it, but it was so lovely! I’d love to change ugly gray rocks into a pretty